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How Onsite Medical Services Help Meet the Challenging Conditions of Industrial Worksites
sponsored by Medcor
The industrial trades are key to keeping the economy running, but they are also among the more dangerous professions. Accidents, overuse injuries and occupational illnesses impact workers in the industrial trades at a higher rate than other professions, making it essential that companies practice prevention and that workers receive ample access to skilled care.
Onsite medical services play a key role in helping companies respond to the increasing challenges industrial workers face, improving worksite safety and keeping workers on the job.
Improved Access to Immediate Care
When a worker is injured on the job, it is imperative that they receive prompt assessment of their condition and navigation to the appropriate level of care. Conventional occupational injury management programs send every injured worker for offsite medical care, regardless of their condition. This puts every injured worker up against long wait times for care — time they are losing away from their work duties — and drives up the cost of work-related injury care for you.
For those workers with minor injuries, that may mean onsite first aid that allows them to quickly return to their duties without taking time off work. Those employees that require a higher level of care are capably navigated to the right type of care — emergency room, urgent care facility or their own primary care physician, for example — while keeping those who don't need this level of care out of the traditional healthcare system.
Not only does this reduce your injury-related healthcare costs, but it cuts down on the amount of time your workers are away from their duties, reducing their stress and improving overall productivity.
Meet the Unique Needs of an Aging Workforce
With upwards of 25% of industrial workers in some disciplines over the age of 55, according to data from the Center for Public Affairs Research, College of Public Affairs and Community Service at the University of Nebraska Omaha, overall industrial worker populations are aging. That means they are at a higher risk for some of the more costly — and debilitating — occupational injuries, including:
- Neck injuries: $65,659 average
- Leg injuries: $60,901 average
- Lower back injuries: $39,328 average
- Knee injuries: $35,332 average
Source: National Council on Compensation Insurance's Workers Compensation Statistical Plan data from 2020 and 2021.
Having onsite medical care allows for more preventative measures to be taken to help workers avoid or decrease the severity of injuries. If a worker feels a pain in their shoulder, they can visit the onsite clinic and receive knowledgeable recommendations for work accommodations or strengthening activities that could avoid a more serious — and expensive — injury.
Onsite medical care also can quickly respond in the event of a cardiac arrest or stroke, conditions more likely to occur in older workers, potentially saving lives.
For those workers returning to their duties, either fully or partially, following an on-the-job injury, an onsite medical team can be a valuable resource to ensuring they are well-prepared for the return. Your medical team can work with any offsite providers to track an injured worker's progress, seeing the worker if necessary to determine how well they are healing. Onsite check-ins can occur, and their progress can be closely monitored with the goal being the most positive health outcome and a return to full duties.
Reduced Risk of Drug and Alcohol Use on the Job
A workplace that is free of drugs and alcohol is safer for everyone involved. However, traditional methods of drug testing — sending workers to an offsite facility for testing — is expensive, inefficient and increases the chances of adulterated testing samples.
An onsite clinic allows you to maintain a degree of confidence in your drug testing results unavailable with offsite services. Workers have somewhere convenient they can go when they're required to submit for testing, reducing the amount of time they must take away from their duties.
You get the trustworthy results you need to ensure your workplace is drug- and alcohol-free without all the hassles and headaches of maintaining third-party offsite testing relationships.
Specialized Care for Industry-Specific Needs
Traditional healthcare systems don't always understand the conditions of industrial workers. They may see a patient present with a knee injury and not take into consideration any factors that may have contributed to their condition. This can slow down the recovery process, make a work-related injury more expensive and increase the chances of re-injury.
Onsite medical staff are occupational healthcare professionals. They dig in and truly get to know the general working conditions of your site, observing how workers move and identifying patterns that could be harmful to worker health.
When workers are injured, clinic staff can evaluate whether there were conditions of their day-to-day duties that may have contributed to the injury or that may cause difficulties with their recovery. These factors can be taken into consideration when making a diagnosis and developing a treatment plan, giving your workers the best chance at targeted treatment and a quick recovery.
Because many occupational healthcare professionals spend large portions of their careers serving workers in one industry, they truly get to know the challenges your workers face and can capably respond to new difficulties that may arise.
Reduce Safety Hazards for Better Overall Conditions
Maintaining workplace safety is key to keeping your workers safe. If you don't have a formal safety program, or your workers aren't taking the necessary precautions, you are more likely to have higher rates of on-the-job injuries. This not only means your injury-related costs will be high, but you could face costly OSHA fines, the need to backfill for injured workers and increased turnover from workers leaving for other jobs.
Having an onsite medical team with knowledge and experience in your industry gives you an extra group in your corner focused on making your workplace safer. Your onsite medical team can survey your workspace, looking for things that could pose health and safety hazards to your workers. This could be anything from equipment in poor repair to workers not wearing personal protective equipment, improper ladder usage to faulty fire extinguishers. A plan can then be made to mitigate these hazards, reducing the risks to your workers.
Additionally, when work-related accidents do happen, your onsite medical team can gather information about what led up to the incident. If they identify an obvious hazard or notice a pattern of similar incidents, they can bring that to your attention, working with you to develop a plan of action to make the workplace safer for everyone.